The Nile is one of the longest rivers globally and spreads over 11 countries in East Africa, supplying water, energy production, environmental quality and cultural wealth. However, the use of Nile resources has been a long-standing source of tension, often overshadowing opportunities for cooperation and mutual benefit.

But as the demand for energy, water, and food in Africa is steadily increasing, the study, led by The University of Manchester in collaboration with regional organisations, offers a glimmer of hope at a resolution.

The research, published today in the journal , moves away from traditional water-centric agreements, and presents a detailed simulation of the combined energy-water system to reveal how different scenarios of international energy trades could help alleviate the Nile water conflict.

First author Dr Mikiyas Etichia from The University of Manchester, said: “Traditionally, water disputes in transboundary river basins like the Nile have been approached through a water-centric viewpoint. However, sharing benefits of water resources, such as hydro-generated electricity, crops and fisheries can result in a win-win situation.”

Co-author Dr Mohammed Basheer, Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, added: “In the Nile Basin, energy-river basin benefit-sharing projects have been implemented in the past at a small scale, but detailed tools like the one presented in the paper can help create actionable large-scale proposals.”

At the heart of the dispute lies the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) - a large dam on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia constructed to improve Ethiopia's electricity access and to export electricity to neighbouring countries. The project sparked tensions between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt over water rights and access.

The simulator, designed by the scientists using open-source technology, covers 13 East African countries, including those within the Nile Basin, to model potential energy trade agreements between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt.

By increasing electricity trade, countries can simultaneously address water deficits, boost hydropower generation, reduce energy curtailment, and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Corresponding author from The University of Manchester, said: “The energy trades tested in this study provide the countries a range of solutions that are likely in their national interest.

“The study highlights the value of detailed multisector simulation to unpick the complex interdependencies of large multi-country resource systems. Implementation of the arrangements proposed here would need to be further assessed from governance and legal perspectives to become viable proposals. If successful, they could contribute to sustainable resource management and regional stability.

“We are hopeful the new analytical tools or their results will be taken up by the negotiating parties.”

With the return of hosepipe bans in the UK and severe drought currently affecting many parts of Europe and elsewhere in the world, it's more important than ever to understand how we can grow more food while minimising pressures on freshwater resources and ecosystems.

To this end, the at The University of Manchester and are launching AquaPlan. AquaPlan is an interactive web tool that allow users to quickly and easily assess how crop yields and water demands are affected by different management practices and climate scenarios anywhere in the world.

Dr Tim Foster said: “Crop models are incredibly powerful tools to help agriculture adapt to growing pressures posed by water scarcity and climate change. However, these models require a lot of time and specialist expertise to implement which has often limited their use outside of research projects. AquaPlan provides a practical tool to overcome these challenges, putting state-of-the-art modelling tools in the hands of farmers, practitioners, and policymakers working to improve food and water security globally.”

AquaPlan combines a proven scientific modelling tools, automated data integration, cloud processing, and an intuitive interface to support real-world agricultural water management and climate adaptation. Under the hood, AquaPlan leverages an open-source crop-water model, , developed over the past 10 years by researchers in the at The University of Manchester in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The tool is ideally suited for regions where water is a limiting factor in crop production, an increasing problem facing food systems all around the world. AquaPlan enables users to automatically integrate weather and soil data from trusted open-source datasets and view model outputs in an accessible and interactive interface, all with just a few clicks in the browser. The result is a powerful tool that provides farmers, agronomists, water managers, and other end users with crop modeling capabilities previously only accessible to highly trained researchers and scientists.

In the coming months, the team will be adding more features within AquaPlan to support a range of uses of the tool in real-world agricultural climate risk and water management, including the ability to further customize simulations and implement AquaPlan over larger regional areas. If you are a potential user and have recommendations or requests for the development of AquaPlan, then the team would be delighted to hear from you. Get in touch by emailing Tim Foster (timothy.foster@manchester.ac.uk).

More in-depth information about Aquaplan is detailed in a new blog available via .

Creating a reliable source of oxygen could help humanity establish liveable habitats off-Earth in an era where space travel is more achievable than ever before. Electrolysis is a popular potential method which involves passing electricity through a chemical system to drive a reaction and can be used to extract oxygen out of lunar rocks or to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This can be useful for both life support systems as well as for the in-situ production of rocket propellant.

Until now however, how lower gravitational fields on the Moon (1/6^th of Earth’s gravity) and Mars (1/3^rd of Earth’s gravity) might affect gas-evolving electrolysis when compared to known conditions here on Earth had not been investigated in detail. Lower gravity can have a significant impact on electrolysis efficiency, as bubbles can remain stuck to electrode surfaces and create a resistive layer.

New research published today in demonstrates how a team of researchers from The University of Manchester and the University of Glasgow undertook experiments to determine how the potentially life-giving electrolysis method acted in reduced gravity conditions. The team boarded a zero-g parabolic flight to escape the Earth's gravity in order to accurately conduct their experiments.

Lead engineer of the project, Gunter Just, said: “We designed and built a small centrifuge that could generate a range of gravity levels relevant to the Moon and Mars, and operated it during microgravity on a parabolic flight, to remove the influence of Earth’s gravity.

“When doing an experiment in the lab, you cannot escape the gravity of Earth; in the almost zero-g background in the aircraft, however, our electrolysis cells were only influenced by the centrifugal force and so we could tune the gravity-level of each experiment by changing the rotation speed. The centrifuge had four 25 cm arms that each held an electrolysis cell equipped with a variety of sensors, so during each parabola of  around 18 seconds we did four simultaneous experiments on the spinning system.

“We also operated the same experiments on the centrifuge between 1 and 8 g in the laboratory. In this configuration we had the arms swinging so that the downwards gravity was accounted for. It was found that the trend observed below 1 g was consistent with the trend above 1 g, which experimentally verified that high gravity platforms can be used to predict electrolysis behaviour in lunar gravity, removing the limitations of needing costly and complex microgravity conditions. In our system, we found that 11% less oxygen was produced in lunar gravity, if the same operating parameters were used as on Earth.”

The additional power requirement was more modest at around 1%. These specific values are only relevant to the small test cell but demonstrate that the reduced efficiency in low gravity environments must be taken into account when planning power budgets or product output for a system operating on the Moon or Mars. If the impact on power or product output was deemed too large for a system to function properly, some adaptations could be made that may reduce the effect of gravity, such as using a specially structured electrode surface or introducing flow or stirring.

Pollutants can move at different speeds and accumulate in varying quantities along rivers where the mix of the complex ‘cocktail’ of chemicals that is making its way towards the ocean is constantly changing, a new study reveals.

Researchers have discovered characteristic breakpoints – often found when a tributary joins the main river or significant point sources exist – can change the behaviour of some compounds, causing the concentration of these chemicals to change drastically, depending on where they are on their journey down the river.

Experts discovered the phenomenon after piloting a new, systematic approach to understanding hydrogeochemical dynamics in large river systems along the entire length of India’s River Ganges (Ganga) – from close to its source in the Himalayas down to the Indian Ocean.

This new research approach proven successful at the iconic Ganga can be applied to other large river systems across the world – hopefully shedding new light on how to tackle the global challenge of aquatic pollution by multiple interacting contaminants.

Publishing its findings in , the international research team, which includes experts from the Universities of Birmingham and 91ֱ�� and other Indian and UK collaborators, reveals that chemicals including nitrate, chloride, sulfate, calcium, sodium and strontium are cut and boosted in different proportion by a series of breakpoints along the Ganga.

They found that mixing, dilution and weathering are key processes controlling major hydrochemistry - identifying four major breakpoints which alter the concentration of at least four chemicals in the river. Five minor breakpoints affect the water mix of 2-3 chemicals, with two ‘single’ locations impacting on just one parameter.

Dr Laura Richards, the study’s lead author from The University of Manchester, commented: “Our research helps to understand the downstream transitions in the chemistry of the River Ganga providing important baseline information and quantification of solute sources and controls.  In addition to improving the understanding of a river system as environmentally and societally important as the Ganga, the systematic approach used may also be applicable to other large river systems.”

Stefan Krause, Professor of Ecohydrology and Biogeochemistry at the , commented: “Large river systems, such as the Ganga, provide crucial water resources with important implications for global water, food and energy security. Understanding the complex dynamics of such systems remains a major challenge.

“The breakpoints we have identified in India change the behaviour of some compounds, altering the composition of the cocktail of chemicals flowing down the Ganga to the ocean.

“Breakpoint analysis could be a game changer in understanding how pollutants travel along major watercourses – allowing us to identify the ‘hotspots’ which will shed new light on the behaviour of aquatic pollution and how better to tackle this global challenge.”

Informed by a 2019 post-monsoonal survey of 81 bank-side sampling locations, researchers identified five major hydrogeochemical zones - characterised, in part, by the inputs of key tributaries, urban and agricultural areas, and estuarine inputs near the Bay of Bengal.

The researcher’s novel research approach brings systematic insight into the factors controlling key geochemistry in the Ganga - one of the world’s largest and most important river systems, flowing over 2,500 km from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, through one of the world’s most densely populated areas.

As a major source of livelihood, the river is a key water source to more than 400 Million people and very important to many social and religious traditions in India, but faces increasing environmental challenges associated with rapid development, climate change, increasing urbanisation, water demand and agricultural intensity.

This work was undertaken as part of a partnership between Indo-UK projects and the following support is acknowledged: NERC-DST Water Quality Projects FAR-GANGA NE/R003386/1 & DST/TM/INDO-UK/2K17/55(C) & 55(G) to Polya et al (see ); Water Quality TEST NE/R003106/1 & DST/TM/INDO-UK/2K17/30 to Reynolds et al.; NE/R000131/1 to Jenkins et al.; and 100 Plastic Rivers (The Leverhulme Trust) to Krause et al.

This week (Tuesday 25 May), researchers at The University of Manchester’s National Graphene Institute (NGI) have published a study in  showing a dramatic decrease in friction when water is passed through nanoscale capillaries made of graphene, whereas those with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) - which has a similar surface topography and crystal structure as graphene - display high friction.

The team also demonstrated that water velocity could be selectively controlled by covering the high friction hBN channels with graphene, opening the door to greatly increased permeation and efficiency in so-called ‘smart membranes’.

Fast and selective fluid-flows are common in nature – for example in protein structures called aquaporins that transport water between cells in animals and plants. However, the precise mechanisms of fast water-flows across atomically flat surfaces are not fully understood.

Co-authors of the study (from left to right): Yi You,Solleti Goutham, Radha Boya and Ashok Keerthi

The investigations of the 91ֱ�� team, led by Professor Radha Boya, have shown that - in contrast to the widespread belief that all atomically flat surfaces that are hydrophobic should provide little friction for water flow - in fact the friction is mainly governed by electrostatic interactions between flowing molecules and their confining surfaces.

Dr Ashok Keerthi, first author of the study, said: “Though hBN has a similar water wettability as graphene and MoS₂, it surprised us that the flow of water is totally different! Interestingly, roughened graphene surface with few angstroms deep dents/terraces, or atomically corrugated MoS₂ surface, did not hinder water flows in nanochannels”.

Therefore, an atomically smooth surface is not the only reason for frictionless water flow on graphene. Rather the interactions between flowing water molecules and confining 2D materials play a crucial role in imparting the friction to the fluid transport inside nanochannels.

Useful in evaporation processes

Professor Boya said: “We have shown that nanochannels covered with graphene at the exits display enhance water flows. This can be very useful to increase the water flux from membranes, especially in those processes where evaporation is involved, such as distillation or thermal desalination.”

Understanding of liquid friction and interactions with pore materials is vital to the development of efficient membranes for applications such as energy storage and desalination. This latest study adds to an increasingly influential body of work from the researchers at the NGI, as 91ֱ�� reinforces its position at the forefront of nanofluidic research towards improved industrial applications for sectors including wastewater treatment, pharmaceutical production and food and beverages.

You can read more about the group’s work at the following links:

• Ultra-fast gas flows through tiniest holes in 2D membranes
• 91ֱ��: bringing clean water to the world
• Molymem: 91ֱ�� spin-out brings innovative water filtration tech to market

Advanced materials is one of The University of Manchester’s research beacons - examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet. #ResearchBeacons

Large-scale irrigation infrastructure projects are back on the development agenda in sub-Saharan Africa after a near 30-year hiatus, despite projects having had disappointing results, with social and environmental side effects outweighing benefits. Such projects are planned in response to water scarcity pressures and are seen as a solution to intensify agricultural production, support rural economic development and enhance resilience to climate change.

New Research, published in ,  from a University of Manchester-led consortium quantified the performance of 79 African irrigation schemes. They did this by comparing planning documents to satellite-derived land cover maps to give the percentage of irrigation delivered and those that had stopped working. The found schemes are consistently underperforming and there have been no trends in project delivery success between 1948 and 2008.

The schemes delivered a median of 16% of the proposed area. 16 out of 79 were completely broken. 20 schemes delivered over 80% of the proposed area.

The University of Manchester led team argues that it is the political and management frameworks underpinning African irrigation development leading to the underperformance. The financial viability of schemes are limited by low value crops that are promoted for increased grain production and national food security. Secondly, proposals are unrealistic to start with: planning is afflicted with optimism bias and political requirements for on-paper profitable projects. And finally, schemes are managed by centralised bureaucracies, lacking technical expertise, local knowledge or financial resources to ensure long-term maintenance.

First author of the new research, Postdoctoral research associate at The University of Manchester, Tom Higginbottom said: "Irrigation schemes have been constructed in sub-Saharan Africa for nearly 100 years, our research shows planners have consistently over-promised how much land can be developed and failed to achieve this. Future plans should be mindful of issues faced by previous schemes to avoid repeating the same mistakes."

“Our findings show that irrigation schemes are consistently smaller than planned and have non-trivial rates of complete failure, with no noted improvements over 60 years of development. These findings are consistent with evidence on outcomes from wider infrastructure mega-projects, which are often associated with large cost overruns and poor delivery compared to initial plans.” said Roshan Adhikari, The University of Manchester

This research was supported by The University of Manchester’s flagship £8M Global Challenge Research Fund project ‘F’

FutureDAMS CEO Professor David Hulme of The University of Manchester’s , says: “One aim of The University of Manchester’s FutureDAMS research project is to improve the planning and governance of water-energy-food-environment systems. We are delighted to produce this analysis which could assist in more sustainable development of Africa’s natural resources.”

Despite the enormity of this problem, most wells providing drinking water (there are at least tens of millions of them) have not been tested for arsenic, so modelling using data from those that have been tested is an important tool to help get an idea of where further high arsenic well waters are more likely to occur. Because of this, researchers have constructed prediction models for individual countries (e.g. China, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, USA, Bangladesh, Cambodia) as well as on a regional or global scale, but curiously, to date, there had not been published a detailed model focused solely on India.

An international team involving researchers based in 91ֱ�� (UK), Patna (India) and Zurich (Switzerland) has now addressed this. Their country-specific, country-wide model for well water arsenic in India has recently been published in the .

Their model confirms the known high probability of finding hazardous high arsenic well waters in northern India in the river basins of the Ganges and Brahmaputra. What is new and particularly concerning, is that the model also finds an elevated probability of high arsenic well waters in other Indian areas, where previously arsenic hazard was generally not considered to be a major concern – so much so that in many of these areas well water arsenic is not routinely checked.

These areas include parts of south-west and central India and are mostly areas underlain by sediments and sedimentary rocks. Such occurrences are similar to those predicted by the The University of Manchester group by similar types of modelling and subsequently found elsewhere, notably in South-East Asia.

The study suggests follow up to help better define specific areas in which action is required to reduce adverse public health outcomes from drinking high arsenic well waters. The study also highlights the importance of systematic testing of hazards, not just in known high hazard areas, but also through random sampling of all wells used for drinking water.

There are known and important limitations to this kind of modelling approach. The output model can only be as good as the data upon which it is based; the model is based largely on satellite-derived data and so is less reliable for deeper wells; the model does not consider variations of well water arsenic with time. Lastly, the arsenic content of well waters is known to change massively over very short distances, so for a particular well, the model will never be a better substitute for a good chemical analysis of the water produced from that well.

Nevertheless, the model does suggest new areas in India in which follow up sampling of well water and analysis for arsenic should be done; this will help save lives in those areas.

This internationally collaboration was largely built on a joint India-UK Water Quality project FAR-GANGA ( ) for which co-authors Professor David Polya, a researcher at The University of Manchester, and Mr Biswajit Charkavorty, a senior scientist at the are the UK and India leads respectively.

Professor Polya said: “The model outputs are a good example of the benefits of international collaboration. The work would have been much more difficult to achieve without the joint India-UK Water Quality programme project, FAR-GANGA.”

Mr Chakravorty said: “The outcome of this open-access joint Indo-UK study will help create greater awareness of hazardous arsenic distribution in wells amongst the population.”

The lead author of the study was Dr Joel Podgorski, currently a senior scientist at the (Eawag), but who conducted much of the study whilst a Postdoctoral Impact Research Fellow at The University of Manchester. He said: “This study demonstrates how the increasing availability of data can be used to better understand the scope of public health crises.”

Ms Ruohan Wu, a postgraduate researcher at The University of Manchester, was also part of the research team.

The University of Manchester has strategic partnerships and collaborations worldwide and has a history of creating strong links with business, public authorities and students in India. For more information about our work with India visit  

A collaborative research project between the Universities of Manchester, Utrecht, and Durham, and the National Oceanography Centre has revealed for the first time how submarine sediment avalanches can transport microplastics from land into the deep ocean.

The study also revealed that these flows, the largest on earth, are responsible for sorting different types of microplastics – burying some, and moving others vast distances across the sea floor.

These findings may help predict the location of future seafloor microplastic hotspots, which in turn could help direct research into the impact of microplastics on marine life.

Over 10 million tons of plastic pollution is exported into the oceans each year. It is thought that around 99% of this is stored in the deep sea, often prefentially accumulating in submarine canyons.

However, it was previously not known how plastic pollution gets to the deep sea from land. The new research, published in , has shown that microplastics can be moved by gravity-driven sediment flows, which can travel thousands of kilometers over the seafloor.

Quartz sand was mixed with microplastic fragments and fibers and released in a flume tank that was designed to simulate real-world flows. University of Manchester researcher, Dr Ian Kane, developed techniques to analyse the sediment carried within these flows and deposited on the seafloor, and the samples were analysed in The University of Manchester Geography Laboratories.

Concentrations of microplastic fragments were concentrated in the lower parts of the flow while microplastic fibres were distributed throughout the flow and settled more slowly. The larger surface to volume ratio of fibres is thought to be the reason they are more evenly distributed. The high concentration of microplastic fibres in sand layers at the base of the flow is thought to be because they get more easily trapped by sand particles.

Dr Ian Kane said: “This is in contrast to what we have seen in rivers, where floods flush out microplastics; the high sediment load in these deep ocean currents causes fibres to be trapped on the seafloor, as sediment settles out of the flows."

91ֱ��ing the distribution of different types of plastic on the seafloor is important because the size and type of plastic particle determines how toxins build up the surface, as well as how likely it is the plastic will enter the gut of any animal that eats it, and what animal may eat it.

These experiments show that sediment flows have the potential to transport large quantities of plastic pollution from nearshore environments into the deep sea, where they may impact local ecosystems. The next steps for research will involve sampling and monitoring deep-sea submarine canyon, to understand how robustly these experimental findings can be applied to natural systems and the effects on deep-sea ecosystems.

The paper can be viewed at: